Secrets (45 page)

She couldn’t even see her mother as the hard-faced shrew she used to picture. Instead, she found herself remembering her telling her stories as they made gingerbread men together, picking wild flowers, or cuddling up together by the stove on cold evenings. It made her eyes smart when she imagined Adele in her place, the pair of them blanking out all memory of the mother and daughter who had cared so little for them.

Until quite recently Rose had never felt bad about running away from home the way she did. She could justify it completely, for she worked all the hours God sent at that hotel and had to hand over all her wages to a mother who didn’t even appreciate how hard she had to work. Besides, Myles had seemed like her big chance in life. Then, when everything went wrong and she was alone with a baby on the way, she was too proud to write and admit she was in trouble.

She supposed she lost that pride somewhere along the road, and apathy took its place. Most of her adult life was now a mere blur, with only a few images sticking up like rocks through a mist. One was getting married to Jim in that horrible dirty register office in Ladbroke Grove. The registrar had smirked at her swollen belly and said something about ‘they’d made it just in time’. There was Adele’s birth too in a grim boarding house with bugs in the bed. She had hours and hours of white-hot pain, with only a sharp-tongued old biddy to help her. Was it any wonder she didn’t feel loving towards a baby who had torn her apart, prevented her ever going home again, and forced her into marrying a dimwit like Jim Talbot?

Pamela’s birth also stood out clearly in her mind, but a different experience entirely. It was quick and painless, and Jim had been so kind and loving that she almost fooled herself into believing she loved him. When she looked down at Pamela’s sweet little face she felt such tenderness and pride, and she thought that at last her life had taken a turn for the better.

They moved into Charlton Street not long afterwards, and it seemed like paradise after the hideous places they’d lived in before.

Pamela was around eighteen months old when everything turned sour. Rose had had times before when she’d felt exhausted and morose, but it had always passed. This time, however, it was as if a cold grey fog was swirling around her, refusing to lift. She didn’t want to get up in the morning – the thought of nappies to wash, meals to be cooked and the endless demands of the two children was just too much to bear. She wanted complete silence, to be alone, and just the sound of Jim or Adele’s voice made her want to run out of the flat and keep running until she found the peace she craved.

It was Pamela who held her there. Hers was the only voice that didn’t grate on her nerves. Her smiles were the only thing that lifted the fog a little. Rose wished she could feel the same way about Adele, but whenever she looked at her, she was reminded of Myles, and what he had put her through.

Once, when Pamela was three, she’d tried to leave with her while Adele was at school. She had managed to save a couple of pounds out of the housekeeping money, and she thought she’d catch a train out into the country and find somewhere to live. But as she began to pack up all the things they would need, she realized she hadn’t got the strength to carry a heavy bag and a small child who couldn’t walk far. She sat down on the floor and cried like a frustrated child.

She thought of leaving many more times after that, but she knew she couldn’t work and look after Pamela. And the more trapped she felt, the worse it got.

Then Pamela was killed, and all at once there was nothing left in her life. Drinking dulled the pain a little, but as soon as she sobered up, it came back again. She had no real recollection of the events that led up to her being committed to the asylum. All she remembered was that after Pamela’s funeral she felt as though someone was winding her up tighter and tighter like a mechanical toy, and she guessed that in the end the spring inside her broke and she lost control of her body and mind.

She did remember some of the treatments she had in the asylum. Being plunged into icy baths, being forced to swallow some terrible medicine which made her vomit. But what really brought her wits back was none of these things. It was being shut up in a room on her own.

To be left alone, no one trying to talk to her, asking her to do anything, to be able to sleep and sleep, that was what saved her. Once her mind and body were rested, she was able to think clearly again.

At the time she was informed her mother had become Adele’s legal guardian, she was also told that she could not be discharged from the asylum without her husband’s agreement. She knew that meant she’d be in there for life, as Jim wasn’t likely to come forward.

Rose observed that the asylum staff were hardest on those who caused them any trouble. She had been beaten herself when she first arrived there for screaming abuse and fighting the staff. Fear of injury had made her become silent and obedient, and she saw that the only way she might stand a chance of escape was to stay that way.

So she gave up protesting that she wasn’t mad, she didn’t speak, cry or shout at all, just did exactly what she was told, and made no trouble for anyone. She thought if she kept up this docile silence they would begin to give her little jobs, and she could win their trust.

Her assumption was correct. Before long they gave her mending to do, washing floors, even work in the laundry, and finally they allowed her to walk in the grounds.

There were times when she even began to believe she really had lost the ability to speak, along with smiling, laughing and walking briskly. She got so used to keeping a blank expression, to shuffling along slowly with her head held down, just like the other patients, that she found she didn’t even care when the staff talked about her in front of her as if she was a real imbecile. But she kept her eyes open, listened carefully and made mental notes of anything that could be useful to her.

She had told Johnny she escaped from there in a laundry van, and this was true. But what she would never admit to him or anyone else was that she used her feminine wiles on the simple-minded driver to get him to smuggle her out. She felt no real shame that she tempted him with the offer of sex so he would hide her in a basket of washing, that was fair game. But she was ashamed that once she was outside the gates she kept up the pretence of loving him so he would clothe, feed and keep her.

Poor simple Jack had never had a woman before and he had worshipped Rose. He didn’t smoke or drink, he lived a frugal life in the same tiny, dilapidated cottage on the outskirts of Barnet that he’d been born in. His parents were both dead, he hadn’t a real friend in the world, and his job as a van driver was the only thing he had to be proud of. It wasn’t right that she stayed with him for over a year, gradually building up his belief that she was his woman, and all the time stealing from him until she had enough money to flee.

She read in the papers a few weeks after she’d left that he hanged himself in a wood. That made her feel really bad. He had willingly risked losing his job to help her. He might even have been sent to prison for harbouring her if he’d been found out. He was just thirty, a man who had spent most of his life as the butt of jokes, isolated and friendless. And she’d broken his heart.

Rose couldn’t understand why she was suddenly dwelling on the past so much. She had always believed that once she had financial security and a decent place to live, happiness would come with it. But she wasn’t happy. How could she be when she was for ever looking over her shoulder, tormenting herself with memories of people she’d used, shabby tricks she’d played, and remorse for what she’d done to her mother and Adele?

Sometimes, when she’d had a couple of drinks, she even tried to write to them and apologize, but she’d re-read the letters the following morning and tear them up. Whatever she said was never going to be enough to be forgiven.

Chapter Twenty-one

Honour paused at the kerb of Shepherd’s Bush Road, making Towzer sit. Looking across to number 103, she felt a mixture of relief she’d finally found it, and trepidation at what was to come.

She had only been to London a few times in her life, and then only to art galleries or the West End shops, so she had little idea of what to expect of ordinary working-class areas. Instinct, and descriptions Adele had given her of the East End, told her that Hammersmith was a quite respectable area, but it looked hideous and squalid to her.

It was 23 August, yet another hot day, and the leaves on the trees hung down limply, covered in a film of dust and soot. Windows criss-crossed with sticking tape, and piles of sandbags were an inevitable and expected aspect of war, but the overflowing dustbins and the smell of drains repulsed her. She didn’t think she could bear to live in a street where hordes of grubby children ran around yelling stridently all day. She thought the women in pinafores and turban-style headscarves gossiping on the front steps should get their backsides off and take their offspring to a park.

Yesterday, Honour had received a letter from Rose. Apart from the shock of a letter after all these years, she was greatly surprised by the uncharacteristic meek and apologetic tone to it. She had read and re-read it dozens of times in the course of the day, wondering at the real motive behind it. She began to reply to it last night but, defeated as to what she should say, early this morning she’d decided to come to London and see Rose face to face instead.

She wasn’t merely curious to see how Rose lived now, or even desperate to make the peace with her errant daughter. But she believed that it was time at least to attempt to draw a line under the past.

No one could predict what this war had in store for them, and there had been reports of bombs dropped around London very recently. One had landed in Wimbledon on 16 August when people were killed, and according to the map that wasn’t so far from Hammersmith. Honour knew that if Rose was killed or badly hurt in an air raid she would always be sorry she hadn’t at least attempted to see her. As it was a Saturday today she thought there was every chance Rose would be at home.

The train was slow, taking an hour longer than it should have, giving her far too much time to worry about what she was going to find at her journey’s end. She had felt compelled to bring Towzer with her just in case something cropped up and she couldn’t get back again tonight. While he seemed perfectly at home on the carriage floor, she wasn’t sure what he would make of busy streets with buses and trams. Fortunately he seemed to be taking it all in his stride, and Honour felt quite proud of herself that she’d managed to find her way to Hammersmith unaided.

As Rose had said nothing about her personal circumstances, only that she let out rooms, Honour couldn’t help but feel she must be in difficulties. Why else would she suddenly claim she was sorry for all the hurt in the past?

Honour was very hot, her best navy blue dress too thick for a summer’s day. Her feet hurt, her eyes felt full of grit, and both she and Towzer desperately needed a drink. But on the plus side, number 103 was no better or worse than any other house in the street.

It was a soot-engrained terraced house that led straight on to the street, with no front garden. It had three floors and a basement, with a few steps up to the front door which was painted royal blue. Most of the windows were open, and she hoped that meant Rose would be in, and that her journey hadn’t been wasted.

The bell rang loudly enough to wake the dead, but it was a while before Honour heard someone coming to answer it.

A young woman of about twenty-five, with bright red hair and conflicting lipstick, opened the door. ‘Yes?’ she inquired.

‘I’ve come to see Mrs Talbot,’ Honour said.

The girl shrugged. ‘I dunno if she’s in. Try knocking on that door.’ She pointed to the second one down the hallway, then flounced off back up the stairs, leaving Honour to come in and close the front door behind her.

Honour knocked, then called out Rose’s name. There was still no reply. Looking up the stairs, she could see an open door to a white-tiled room that looked like a bathroom. As she needed the lavatory and a drink for Towzer, she went up, taking the dog with her.

She used the lavatory, which she noted was none too clean, got Towzer’s tin bowl from her bag and gave him a drink of water. As the window was open she put her head out to see what lay behind the house.

To her surprise, right down below at the basement level, there was Rose lying asleep in a deckchair. A lump came up in Honour’s throat, as from so far away Rose looked young and vulnerable in a pink and white striped sundress, the skirt hitched up over her knees.

She leaned out of the window and called to her.

It was almost laughable that while Rose hadn’t heard the loud door bell, the sound of her mother’s voice made her jerk awake immediately, jump to her feet and look round in puzzlement.

‘I’m upstairs, Rose,’ Honour called out. ‘I knocked on your door but couldn’t make you hear.’

Five minutes later Honour was down in the back yard, with Rose sitting opposite her and Towzer between them panting and looking from one to the other, perhaps picking up on the tension between them.

‘I shouldn’t have sent that letter,’ Rose said for the third time. ‘I wasn’t quite myself at the time.’

‘You were drunk?’ Honour said bluntly.

‘No! Of course not,’ Rose said, too quickly. ‘I was just feeling a bit low.’

Honour was fairly certain Rose
had
been drunk and had no recollection of writing or posting it, for when she’d let her mother in she seemed completely dumbstruck at being found. That didn’t bother Honour. While she didn’t exactly like the thought that the letter was the rambling of a drunk who had forgotten it by morning, in her opinion people tended to speak from the heart at such times.

‘I can’t believe you came all this way on the train,’ Rose said breathlessly, as if desperate to move the conversation on to a different tack. ‘With a dog too! How did you find your way?’

‘I might be sixty but my brain still works,’ Honour said dryly. ‘The travelling has made me very thirsty though. Are you going to offer me some tea?’